How we struggle with changing our future.
We all have a hard time preparing for the future and dealing with the present.
We also know this is the case.
Climate change, automation, disease, crumbling infrastructure: all matters that are at once present and future. We are dealing with them now. And we’ll be dealing with them in the future at a greater scale.
A lot of our problems exist for us today like compounding debt. It costs a lot today and even more tomorrow. And even more than that the next year.
The real reason we have trouble dealing with it is today’s burdens feel too heavy already. We can’t imagine taking on more now to save us pain in the future.
We also struggle to see any alternatives to what we have now. At least any alternatives that aren’t coded as loss.
Pain
So what our brains end up doing is offering the choice between pain and avoidance—which isn’t really what we’re talking about. Because avoidance is really only choosing to experience the greater pain later.
We also often isolate economic pain. Which is its own kind of magical thinking. Like we can always cut our way to growth. And pretend the other pains aren’t real.
Therefore, our problems of the present and future aren’t our only problems. Processing them is an additional problem. Deciding what to do about them is another.
And because we usually avoid dealing with it now, choosing not to avoid becomes more valuable.
Of course, there’s also more than that.
Solving the Crises
Recognizing the commonality of these problems is essential. So is our intentional disruption of the inevitable.
For the United States, the Great Depression didn’t end on its own. It took a massive disruption: the New Deal. And as New Deal priorities were removed, we’ve seen a half century of decline.
The gloom in our future isn’t inevitable. But the combination of avoidance and preservation strives to ensure it will be.